


I Love You, But I Don’t Like You

by Dracarysforged



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Molly Hooper Appreciation, Post-Season/Series 04, Sherlock Holmes & Molly Hooper Friendship, Sherlock's heart grew three sizes that day, blink and you'll miss it johnlock mention, two dark humored nerds learning to be friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:07:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25098118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dracarysforged/pseuds/Dracarysforged
Summary: “Are you okay? And don’t just say you are,” he says quietly, a perfect mirror of the last time they had this conversation. “I know what that means, looking sad when you think no one can see you.”'Cause I love you, but I don't like youThe simple truth is I can't do this, though I try toI love you, but I don't like youAnd I can't shut you out, so I'm shutting my mouthBut I'll never despise youI just don't like you“I Don’t Like You” - Grace VanderWaal
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes & Molly Hooper
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	I Love You, But I Don’t Like You

**Author's Note:**

> Note: Errors are my own, not brit-picked  
> Set immediately after 4x03 TFP, Sherlock dealing with the fallout of the “I Love You” call with Molly. NOT Sherlolly pairing, but definitely on their way to being best friends.

It’s 11 pm and the lights of the morgue are still bright and buzzing on Friday night. Sherlock peers in the window of the door to see Molly, bent over a body with her face scrunched in concentration as she makes notes on the clipboard tucked in the crook of her arm.

She looks exhausted, deep circles under her eyes and her hair lank and dry, falling out of it’s braid. She’s lost weight too, swimming in the folds of her cardigan and lab coat. Six cups of coffee litter surfaces around her and Sherlock notes the distinctive lack of a ring on her finger when she reaches for the closest one. 

She takes a sip and grimaces, peering down into the cup and shaking her head, setting it back down. 

Just as his hand touches the door handle, Molly’s head shoots up in alarm, their eyes meeting through the narrow pane of glass in the door. A more melodramatic portion of Sherlock’s brain, still caught in the burnt-out shell of his childhood home and his sister’s empty, desperate voice, would say Molly looks like a ghost, haunted and haunting all at once.

Something flushes through him he can’t quite identify and it’s accompanied by a strange, obtrusive thought. 

_I did this to her_.

For a moment he is frozen, caught in the unnameable feeling, sick and oily. He is aware of the coldness of his actions on occasion, the dark, unhappy looks people direct his way when they think he isn’t paying attention. 

_And that’s the curse, isn’t it, for himself and everyone else, he’s always paying attention_. 

But for each of those times he’s been able to stand on the firm foundation of reason, perhaps not happy with what he has to do, and feeling more like Mycroft than he ever hoped to, but firm in his convictions nevertheless. 

This time, there is no flush of victory at the end, no logic for the action. Just a yawning sinkhole between him and Molly Hooper, full of self-hatred, and sticky confusion. 

The door creaks open under his fingers, almost without him realizing he’d moved, and he sees Molly openly flinch back as he enters the room. The sinkhole deepens. 

Sherlock is under no delusion that he’ll suddenly become a caring, empathetic, sensitive person, but, he concedes, perhaps he’s taken on more of that data than even he realized. He can see it now, as clearly as he can see all the physical details of her and how they tell the story of her day and her life and her routines; now he can also see the clues in her that speak of sadness and loneliness and resignation.

Did he look like this before? Is the trick of empathy that simple? She saw in him that day what she feels in herself?

She slams her clipboard down on the edge of the slab, so loud she makes herself jump, and she curls shaking hands over the edge of the table. 

“Sherlock, I don’t really-”

“Would you like to have a coffee?” he blurts out.

She stares, her face slowly twisting inwards like crumpled foil.

“As friends,” he continues, feeling like a babbling idiot. “But, would you like to have a coffee nonetheless?”

Molly sighs heavily, tugging at her braid. She gestures to the cups littering flat surfaces around her without speaking. 

_I don’t know how to do this!_ Sherlock wants to scream, but he recognizes that maybe for once this isn’t about his feelings or frustrations. John would probably be proud of him for that thought. 

Bart’s morgue has always felt something like refuge to him, the only place he would dare to say he felt welcome other than the warm confines of 221B. Here, he can sit and think with little interruption, still and pale amongst the still, pale corpses that compose his audience. 

It is in this moment that he understands with sudden, blinding clarity that part of the reason he felt that way was because Molly welcomed him so, the guardian of this quiet, forgotten domain. With her ire turned sour, turned on him, the whole room feels vague and menacing, her image razor sharp against the shiny metal and harsh lights of her temple. 

He wrenches the words up from his chest. “Have a coffee with me...please.”

She watches him for a long, quiet moment, her face tumbling through a rapid-fire series of emotions. Her eyes jump briefly to the clock on the wall.

“Alright then,” she finally responds. “But make it a proper drink. I’m sick of coffee. Let me just finish up here.”

Sherlock sinks his hands into his pockets and nods, hating how he feels awkward and too big for his body, like being a teenager all over again. He tucks himself into a corner, leaning against the counter, and pulls out his mobile just to have something to do with his hands as he watches Molly from the corner of his eye. 

“Right,” she says very quietly to the corpse in front of her, some of that bubbly nature returning to her voice, “sorry for the interruption Jacob. What was it you were telling me then?”

She flits around the table, taking measurements and pictures and occasionally talking aloud to the body as she notes things down. Jacob appears to be a man in his early 60s, relatively healthy at first glance, but his arms are tight and swollen and his fingers are burned over a lifetime of small cuts and scratches. Electrician, compartment syndrome from a bad shock then. Routine, but if it happened on a job then Molly’s report is likely required for legal follow-up.

The man is twice her size but she manipulates the body easily, turning and lifting portions of him as she needs. Sherlock shivers a little at the memory of the strength of those hands on him, swapping his limp form onto a new gurney the day she helped him fake his death. Even with her upset and him very much alive she treated him with the same competent tenderness she shows every body that crosses her table.

She finishes the job efficiently, clearing her space and closing down the humming machines and lights of the morgue around them, eventually leaving them to stand only in the dim emergency light as she pulls on her gloves and hauls her heavy messenger bag over her shoulder. 

Sherlock wordlessly reaches for the bag and, for a moment, she grips the strap white-knuckle tight before she lets it slide from her fingers. He slings it over his shoulder and holds the door for her. He works on waiting patiently in the hall as she turns to lock the door behind them, ignoring the wondering glances she keeps casting his way. 

The night air is a chilly blast when they exit St. Bart’s and Molly huddles down into the bulk of her coat and scarf. Sherlock offers her his free arm and she nearly trips on the sidewalk, looking back and forth from his face to the proffered limb for so long that he almost pulls back in embarrassment before she tentatively tucks her hand into the crook of his elbow. He pulls his arm in close, and she seems to understand that this is okay, tucking herself into his side in a way that he can shield her from the worst of the wind. 

She doesn’t question where they are going as he leads them across the way to The Viaduct, a little on the fancy side for staff of St. Barts, but Sherlock knows they stock a decent gin selection and he doesn’t want to have to shout over football in a grungy pub. 

When they arrive, Molly seems impressed but wary. Sherlock requests one of the private booths in the very back corner, a red velvet, plush arrangement that will keep them mostly out of the public eye and earshot of the other patrons. As they settle in, Sherlock dregs up every lesson his nannies had ever tried to drill into him, taking her coat and helping her into the booth and handing her a menu. 

Each time she watches him with wonder and something like suspicion and he bites his tongue against all his usual responses. 

“Anything you like, my treat,” he says.

She nods, trying to read her menu, but she keeps glancing up at him.

“Sherlock,” she finally says and he can’t help how his body goes piano wire tight. He nods to show he’s listening. 

She sighs, setting her menu down. “What’s this about, really? It’s...lovely, but...it’s not very you, is it?”

“I’m trying to be a little less ‘me’ these days,” he says, unable to hide the bitterness in his voice. “Seems to cause more trouble than anything else lately.”

Molly tilts her head, regarding him in that knowing way and he resists the urge to hide behind his menu. 

“Don’t say that Sherlock, who you are is important.”

“Who I am,” he snaps, and then pulls himself inward at the look of shock on her face, “who I am is someone who is constantly getting others hurt.”

This time he can’t meet her eye, setting his menu on the table and staring off to the side. 

He jumps a little when she slides her hand over his. 

“Tell me what happened.”

“I don’t wish to make excuses.”

She shakes her head, “and I won’t let you. But still, tell me what happened.”

He stares at the grain of the table, reading a history of drinks and conversations and arguments there, unsure where to start. 

Molly gestures for the waiter and orders two simple G&T’s, handing over their menus. As the waiter departs, she seems content to sit and let the silence stretch as Sherlock searches for the words. The waiter comes and goes with their drinks and Molly settles into the booth, unwinding her scarf, and still she waits. 

“It’s quite the tale,” he finally says, “even for me.”

Her eyes go wide and round, “wow, it must be for you to say that.”

A bark of sickly laughter catches in his throat, “well, turns out I have an insane, homicidal sister I had forgotten that Mycroft has been keeping locked up in an institution on a remote island who managed to break free and torment us all.”

Molly sucks in a sharp breath. “I’m not lying,” Sherlock rushes to say. 

Her eyes flicker over his face, searching, and then she nods.

“It’s,” he runs a hand over his face. He realizes with a start that she’s still touching his other hand on the table when she wraps her fingers around his and gives a squeeze. He looks at their joined hands but doesn’t pull from her grip. 

“It’s mental, as John would say,” he continues, “I know it sounds that way.”

“Considering I helped you fake your death, mental is relative.” Molly says, her mouth quirking up in the corner. 

“Her name is Eurus, a little older than me, younger than Mycroft. She...doesn’t feel, not anything. I’ve come to realize, Mycroft and I, we play at it, but to see it truly was...horrifying. For a long time, I couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t remember her, but in the course of her testing it started to come back to me…”

He chokes, voice cutting off, and scrubs his free hand through his hair roughly. Molly squeezes the fingers of his other hand encouragingly and they both take deep drinks before Sherlock starts again. 

“I had a best friend, Victor Trevor, and she...she murdered him. Christ, we were just children and she chained him to a bottom of a well and drowned him. Made up some psychotic riddle for me to solve. God, I hate riddles.”

Molly takes another shaky drink of her gin, gestures to the waiter for two more, but doesn’t push him to continue. 

“Apparently, I was next in line for whatever gruesome fate she had come up with. She burned down the house, very nearly with me inside.”

He takes a deep breath, swirling the ice in his glass, “So, they sent her away. I still don’t remember, not all of it, over time I rewrote the memories: a childhood dog who was always with me, no sister at all.”

He polishes off the end of his drink just as the waiter sets two more in front of them and Molly thanks the man quietly. Sherlock can’t tell if the buzzing in his head is the alcohol or sheer effort required to converse like this.

“She trapped us, on the island, and ran us through a series of experiments. Experiments to her anyway, tests of emotional capacity and deductions.”

“Is John okay?” She asks quietly, kindly. 

“I believe so. He’s still recovering but he is past the critical stage. Eurus chained him in the well where-.”

His voice breaks but Molly has the grace not to comment. Her face is pale and drawn as she listens intently and so he swallows hard and continues on. 

“In one of the rooms, there was a video feed of your flat.”

Molly chokes on her drink, finally reacting, “What?!”

“Mycroft has already cleared the cameras and taps. You are safe now.”

“Of course he has,” she mutters, looking a little furious, but she doesn’t interrupt again. 

“Eurus told me she had rigged your home with explosives. I had to get you to say a chosen phrase without revealing the nature of the situation, or she was going to kill you.”

Molly slowly sets her drink down, her face twisted.

“In the next room I held a gun to my own head to get her to stop and, Molly, I wish I had done it sooner rather than what I did to you.”

She slams her glass on the table and he’s embarrassed to admit he jumps.

“Stop it! Just, stop it. Stop sacrificing yourself or offering to sacrifice yourself or whatever! It doesn’t help, Sherlock, it just hurts everyone around you more and frankly I’m sick of it.”

She looks up at him, eyes watery, rage in every line of her body, “Was saying you love me truly that terrible?” 

Sherlock jerks back, feeling like he’s been shocked, “No, I-”

“You what?”

Sherlock tries to read her and feels so utterly lost. “Just that I’m sorry it happened that way. That time and again you have been there for me and I failed to protect you from her.”

“Well, I’m not blown up so there is that I suppose.”

Sherlock shakes his head, unable to meet her eye, and he tugs his hand from her grip.

“Eurus explained after, there was no bomb. She tricked me.”

Molly is quiet for a veritable age. 

“Well, that does seem rather obvious, doesn’t it.”

“I should have known,” Sherlock grits out. 

“Yes, probably,” she replies, but some of the fury is draining from her body language and he risks a glance up at her.

She’s watching him over the rim of her glass, ice throwing shards of light back across her face. Her eyes are still sparkling with unshed tears and she swallows audibly.

“I’m sorry, Molly, for the pain I’ve caused you. I’ve been ungrateful and unkind and you deserve better.”

She finishes off her drink and then she reaches over and plucks his out of his hand and finishes that off too. 

“I’m going to the loo, you can pay. Let’s go for a walk,” she says, sliding out of the booth. 

He does as she says, paying the bill and tipping handsomely and shrugging into his coat. By the time she returns he’s holding her coat open for her and he slings her heavy bag over his shoulder once more while she wraps her scarf about her neck. 

As they step back into the cool night air, London still buzzing with life through the midnight hours, Molly tucks herself into his side without prompting, both hands wrapped around his elbow. 

“Where would you like to go?” He asks. 

Molly shrugs, “I dunno, let’s just wander. I’m sure you know some interesting places I’ve never been.” 

Sherlock does indeed, so he walks them along the historic route of the River Fleet, spilling trivia of the only sort he bothers to remember, facts about old maps and tunnels and crime that make up the banks of that forgotten place. When they reach Blackfriars, he helps her scramble down to the narrow ledge to peer into the tunnel that empties the last of the Fleet waters into the Thames, old stone dripping in the darkness. Cars thump on the bridge overhead and sound and light spills from businesses up and down the river. 

“A dark, drippy tunnel is on your list of interesting places?” She says, but she seems pleased, color rising in her cheeks. 

Sherlock shrugs, “you didn’t specify interesting by whose standards. You work in a morgue, I assumed the bar was quite low.”

She coughs out a little laugh, almost looking surprised by it.

“Well, at least we are out of the wind. It’ll do,” she says. 

Molly digs around in all her pockets, finally emerging with a battered pack of cigarettes. Sherlock raises a single eyebrow. 

“Shut up you,” she says good naturedly, tucking one between her lips and offering him the pack. “I’m sure you already knew.”

“I didn’t, actually,” he says, truly a little surprised. He plucks a cigarette from the box and takes the lighter from her hand, lighting hers first and then his own before he hands it back to her to pocket the lot. 

“Really?” She says, surprised. 

Sherlock shrugs, “these are quite stale, obviously you don’t partake often.”

Molly swats him on the shoulder, “oi, don’t insult the person feeding your terrible habits. If you must know, I don’t even enjoy them much, but it’s a good cover for standing about outside from time to time.”

Sherlock nods. In fact, he had picked up his first cigarette for the very same reason, blending into a crowd outside a club, listening and watching and breathing sweet, sticky smoke. The habit comes easy after that.

They smoke in silence and it seems like the sadness that has been creeping at the edge of her features this whole time steals back across her face. He grinds his cigarette butt into the concrete and turns to her.

“Are you okay?” He asks quietly.

She sucks in a deep breath and then releases a stuttering wall of smoke, coughing a little and stomps her own cigarette out. 

Her eyes roam over his face and, like a dam breaking, her face twists painfully and tears well in her eyes. She tries to duck her face into her other arm but he catches her hands, ducking down to her level.

“Don’t just say you are,” he continues, lifting their hands between them and giving them a light squeeze. “I know what that means, looking sad when you think no one can see you.”

She chokes out a watery laugh, “you can see me.” A mirror of the first time they had this conversation. 

“Yes,” he replies, “but I don’t count.”

Molly flexes her hands in his, her face still downturned.

“There are a lot of different kinds of love, you know?” she says with a sniff, wiping her face on her shoulder. “I haven’t expected anything romantic from you in a long time, in fact, I don’t even think I’ve felt that way in a long time. But still, I love you. But to you, I’m just white noise Sherlock. There are people in your life who you love and who love you back, but I’m not one of them. Even Jim knew that. That’s what makes me sad.”

Sherlock winces but forces himself to stand and listen. 

“I’m alone Sherlock, and I’m tired. You all sweep in to Bart's and my home and every part of my life at any time of the day or night and ask me for everything, _everything_ , and then you all leave without so much as a goodbye and it’s just me and the morgue and the bodies and the endless silence all over again.”

She pulls her hands free to wipe desperately at her face, rough and frantic. 

“For two years I lied to the whole world and was more alone than ever before. You left and they all forgot I even existed. You broke my heart and you broke all their hearts and then you swanned back into London, larger than bloody life, without so much as an apology. You did all that and here you are with all these people who love you and I-” she breaks off, voice breaking as another sob rattles in her chest.

“Sometimes, I hate you for that, just a little.” she whispers between them. 

Sherlock doesn’t respond. Indeed, he’s not sure there is anything he could or even should say. Perhaps that is the penance, to witness this ugly truth of himself without filter or tempering, to live with the truth of impact over intent. 

He pulls Molly back up to the main path along the river and they settle into a bench there, the lights of London glittering along the dark curve of the Thames in the night. He produces a handkerchief which she accepts with a grateful bob of her head, dabbing at her cheeks and trying to calm her ragged breaths. 

He turns to her fully on the bench, reaching out for her hands once more and she complies, their fingers sliding together. Sherlock, on a whole, generally doesn’t feel the need to reconcile with people. He offends, knowingly and unknowingly, and rarely sees the point in discussing the matter; either they’ll see he was right or they won’t 

Which is why he finds it so surprising just how much time he spends apologizing to Molly Hooper; more even than John or Mrs. Hudson or Lestrade, who mostly take him in stride, Sherlock finds himself needing to know that Molly still holds him in regard. 

For a brief, breath-held moment, Sherlock can clearly see the sheer bloody strength of her and he finally, _finally_ knows what he wants to say. 

“Eurus showed me the truth of my hatred for emotion. I will never be some bleeding heart, I’m not lying when I say I don’t contain that kind of capacity for empathy, but neither do I wish to be what she has become. In truth, I have dealt you more pain than I should ever be forgiven for and it will always be something of a wonder to me that you and John and the rest of them continue to put up with me at all. Your compassion has always been more than I deserve. To whatever degree I am capable of, I love you Molly Hooper, truly. I can’t promise that I won’t hurt you again, but I can try.” 

She presses small, cool fingers to his lips, silencing his declaration. She squeezes her eyes shut tightly, a fresh wave of tears pouring down her face, but there is a soft half smile pulling at the corner of her mouth, her cheeks blushed. 

“Thank you,” she whispers between them, “Thank you, Sherlock.”

She lets her hand drop, touch dragging the whole way, and when she opens her eyes again they are glittering. She leans back a little, wiping at her face. 

“You really have been through a lot lately, haven’t you? I’d say your heart grew three sizes but you wouldn’t get the reference.”

“You are correct.,” he replies.

“It’s a children’s book,” she says with the hint of a laugh, “Dr. Seuss, The Grinch. Go read it, it’ll take you about 30 seconds I’m sure.”

He finds that an answering smile comes surprisingly natural to him, “I will.”

She looks up in surprise at his response, and then her smile blooms over the rest of her face like a sunrise. 

“Don’t take this to mean I’ll suddenly familiarize myself with all the trivia you and John so love dithering on about,” he adds, just to watch the crinkles at the corner of her eyes deepen with amusement. 

“No,” she replies with faux seriousness, mocking him just a little, “of course not. Couldn’t have you filling that big head with trivia, there isn’t enough space with all the hot air in there already.”

Molly’s mouth squirms against a laugh but it’s Sherlock who breaks first, both of them giggling on a bench in the deep London night and finally the world feels right way up again. 

Molly stands, holding out her hand to him, “come on, let’s walk again, I’m freezing.”

Sherlock takes her offered hand, his long fingers wrapping delicately around her small ones and she burrows into his side once more as far out of the cold and wind as she can get.

“Where would you like to go?” he asks. 

“Oh, any old place. Let’s just walk. You can walk me back to my flat, pick a scenic route.

Sherlock nods, setting a steady, measured pace, quietly mapping out beautiful lights and storefronts for them to pass as they walk. 

“So tell me about her, your sister,” Molly prompts, and then blushes, “or, er, I mean. Only if you want too. I guess it’s quite sad.”

“There isn’t much more to say, I still don’t know much about her. As I said, she’s, well…”

“A sociopath?” Molly fills, a hint of an ironic smile playing about her lips. 

“A psychopath,” Sherlock replies, sighing a cloud of breath into the chill London night. “Intelligent, cunning, fascinating. John says we look a little alike; I don’t quite see it but we share similar coloring I suppose, dark hair and light eyes.”

Molly scoffs a little, “not sure we needed two of you in the world, especially a second one even more clever than you are.”

Sherlock shrugs good naturedly. She’s probably not wrong.

Molly wraps her other hand around his elbow and leans into him, “but still, it’s quite exciting! A sister!”

Sherlock looks down at her small pale hands touching him with such familiarity and wonders if he’ll ever feel like he’s not dreaming again. Musgrave sent him down the rabbit hole and he’s not yet sure if he’ll ever crawl back out. 

“Gain a sibling and a someone rather like a sibling and lose one of them in the course of the afternoon. I’m not sure exciting is the word I would use.”

She watches him for a long, contemplative moment, “no, it is exciting. You can’t go back to save Victor now, but he still existed and you’ll still get those memories back. And now you have a chance to build new ones with Eurus. Exciting doesn’t have to mean good or happy, you know that.”

Sherlock can’t help the smile that ticks up the corner of his mouth, “true. Mrs. Hudson likes to comment that my taste in excitement isn’t decent.”

“Well it’s not,” Molly says with a laugh, “but it’s what makes you, you. Isn’t it?”

Sherlock nods tightly, unsure how to reply.

“So tell me more about Eurus.” 

“She told me she taught me to play the violin, I still don’t quite recall it all.”

“She plays?”

Sherlock chuckles, “Oh yes. Tried to give me a Stradivarius as a gift and then insulted my playing. In truth, it was warranted. She’s quite good.”

“How’d she get a-” Molly starts, but then seems to make the connection, “Mycroft?”

“Mycroft.” Sherlock mutters, by way of reply. 

“If you or he or his creepy agents come into my flat without my permission ever again, I promise I’ll put all of you in the morgue myself and this time you’ll stay there.” Molly says, a smile on her face but venom in her voice. 

Sherlock blinks several times. “Well, Hooper, I’m impressed. I’ll be sure to keep that in mind and pass the message along.”

“You do that,” but she squeezes his hand affectionately as she says it. 

Molly continues, “so, where’s Mycroft got her locked now?”

“Back in Sherrinford, the island, but with better security. We’ve adjusted measures so that the family may visit now.”

Molly plucks at his sleeve, the conversation grinding to an awkward halt. He turns towards her and she jumps a little. 

“Molly?”

“Mhmm?” she replies, her eyes fixed on her own hands. 

“Would you tell me, after the call, what happened?”

Molly twists her mouth from side to side, blinking rapidly. 

“Oh Sherlock, I don’t know. I had myself a good cry I suppose, and then I cleaned up and went back to work, same as any other day. Had a bit of a daydream of pushing you down the west stairs with the window at the bottom and telling Lestrade you were walking and texting again.”

“That’s vivid and oddly specific.”

“You are awful, very often.”

“Point made.”

“But truthfully, I think I felt a bit relieved. I had been waiting for you to notice me for so long, and then I finally said what I’d been wanting to say and you said it back and it was a bit like being let free. I feel..lighter somehow.”

Sherlock lifts her conspicuously ringless left hand, “what happened with Tom then?”

Molly tugs her hands from his grip and rubs where the ring would have sat. 

“Just me, being a little bit blind and a little bit silly. Tom was lovely but he wasn’t right. He didn’t know me and I barely knew him. I think it might be time to enjoy my own company for a bit.”

“I’m sorry, Molly, that I can’t give you that.”

Molly sighs heavily, “let’s just let it go. We’ll never be friends if I’m pining and you are taking advantage of it. I think I’m quite over you, you’re a bit too arrogant for my taste anyway.”

Sherlock bristles for a second before he realizes Molly is smiling broadly, watching him in anticipation.

Molly holds out her hand, her face all determination and pride. “Let’s meet in the middle, as equals, okay?”

“Deal,” he replies, shaking her hand firmly. 

As their hands slide apart, Molly’s face turns a bit inquisitive and Sherlock’s insides cringe.

“So, we’re friends now, right?” she asks. 

“I suppose so, though I’ve never been very good with the concept.”

“Oh, it’s easy, you just act decent to each other and share gossip and secrets.”

Sherlock tries and fails to entirely contain his sigh. Molly whacks him on the shoulder.

“I’d appreciate some enthusiasm, thank you very much.”

Sherlock summons up the fakest, broadest smile he can and Molly slaps his arm again, hard enough to sting, and he flinches back but his smile drops to something more natural. 

“Very well,” he gestures, “you begin. You can teach me.”

Her eyes glitter in delight, “okay Mr. Grinch, how about you? If you aren’t gonna date someone as delightful as me, do you think you’ll date anyone?”

Sherlock groans dramatically, “we’ve been in close proximity too often, I think my arrogant manner is rubbing off on you.”

“Hush you, I deserve to brag about myself a bit for once.”

Sherlock nods, “indeed.”

“So,” she says, all expectation, “stop being evasive. I asked you a perfectly friendly question.”

Sherlock slides his thumb along his forefinger over and over, resisting the urge to wring his hands until they are bruised, as he tries to think of the words. 

There’s...something there. Something in the way his chest gasped in perfect time with John drowning at the bottom of a well, something in their laughter running home after that very first case. Something that tastes like fresh made tea and looks like John grinning at him over crime scenes and sounds like the letters of John’s name rolled across his tongue. Is that what people are always on about, their obsession with the romantic? Does it feel like that? Sherlock has nothing to compare it to, so he’s not sure how to define it.

“In the spirit of honesty, I’m not sure I feel romantic love in the traditional sense. At least, I never have before. But I think, if I did…” he trails off, shifting, unsure. 

“Come on, spit it out,” she teases, “you know all my secrets, the least you can do is tell me one of yours. I promise not to tell anyone but the bodies in the morgue.”

Sherlock watches her watch him, all trembling expectation. 

“If I felt that way about anyone, I think it would be John. It’s frankly terrifying and if you tell anyone I said any of that, I will patently deny it. I can cover up a murder just as well as you can.”

Her smile broadens, reaching her eyes, “Almost as well...maybe. And that’s no secret silly, that’s just obvious.”

“What?” Sherlock splutters, stopping dead in his tracks and nearly yanking her off her feet. 

“Oh come on, Sherlock. You two have been dancing around each other for years, half the Yard has bets on it.”

Sherlock sighs heavily, “yes, it does seem like rather a lot of people like to comment on the possibility.”

She tugs on his arm and he meets her eyes, a little sad and a little pleased and a little too knowing, “for what it’s worth, I think he’s over the moon for you, but you can be a little intimidating, Sherlock. After all, I would know. You might need to make the first move.”

Sherlock’s stomach rolls and he swallows painfully at the thought. 

“What does this mean for us?” Sherlock asks quietly. 

Molly’s real smile, true and pleased for the first time that he’s seen in a long while, utterly transforms her into a creature of light and peace.

“Well if John’s gonna be your boyfriend then I think this means I get to be your best friend.” She says, pressing herself into his arm warmly. 

“Ugh, boyfriend, best friends, what atrocious vocabulary.” Sherlock mutters, but he places a hand over hers curled around his arm and feels a smile pull at his face too. 

“Yup,” she says, sounding delighted, tugging him along so they start moving again, “we’ll have pub nights and gossip and ice cream and bad telly for you to yell at. I’ll get to tell John that if he breaks your heart I’ll break his legs or something equally sinister. It’ll be great!”

“I’ve reconsidered, let’s return to Bart’s so I can jump off the roof properly this time.”

Molly smacks his arm for the third time, he’s definitely going to have a bruise at this rate, she’s stronger than she realizes. “You have the absolute worst sense of humor. Besides, it would mean more paperwork for me and I’ve filled out enough paperwork with your ridiculously long, posh name to last me a lifetime.”

He groans audibly, just to keep up the pretense, but in truth he feels lighter than he has in years, Molly nearly bouncing along at his side. 

“Yes, because your sense of humor is much more polished.”

“Let’s be honest Sherlock, our dark sense of humor is probably what makes this all work. Who else would make jokes with you about corpses?”

Sherlock pretends like he’s considering, “John’s not a fan. Lestrade always gets too anxious that there is actually a dead body. There’s always Billy, I suppose.”

“The skull on your mantle?”

Sherlock looks round in surprise, “you remembered?”

“Sherlock, you got him from me!”

“Did I?”

“Well,” Molly looks a bit sheepish, “it’s possible you were a bit high at the time.”

“And taking bones from the morgue?” Sherlock’s eyebrows shoot up, “I guess I can’t say I’m all that surprised. But you let me Dr. Hooper, I think they call that aiding and abetting.”

“Oh hush you, it was a study skull from one of the classroom labs. I caught you talking to it and I didn’t have the heart to take away your new friend.”

“Very well, much obliged,” Sherlock says with a dramatic bow of his head. 

They spent the rest of the walk to Molly’s flat in companionable conversation and silence by turns; idle, trivial things about Molly’s work and Sherlock’s cases and their friends that once upon a time would have set Sherlock to grinding his teeth into oblivion but he strangely finds himself enjoying in a bewildering sort of way. 

This new, constant simmering uncertainty that has made its home in his chest isn’t strictly welcome, but it’s starting to feel more like a proper mystery to solve and less like actual torture, and he finds the anticipation is starting to blot out the dread. It looks a little like Molly’s smile and smells like John’s aftershave, and tastes like Mrs. Hudson’s baking, leaving him light on his feet and truly curious in a way he had almost forgotten how to be. 

“Thank you Molly,” he says quietly, as they turn the corner onto her street.

She looks surprised, but still that smile is there. “You’re welcome.”

On her doorstep, she pauses, a step above him so their heights match more closely. She regards him carefully and he wonders what she reads there in the way he reads others.

“You seem happier, lighter,” she says. It’s not a question.

He shifts, unsure how to reply, and simply nods. 

“Good, you deserve it.”

“As do you.”

Joy infuses her face like a glow, “thank you. I think I’m getting there.”

She leans up and kisses him gently along the rise of his cheekbone.

“Goodnight, Sherlock.”

“Goodnight, Molly.”

He waits until she has her key in the lock and has the door open before he turns, pulling up his coat collar against the wind. He’s only a few steps along when he hears her voice. 

“Sherlock!” she calls and he turns back to find her watching him, a wicked, knowing look on her face. “Get your head out of your arse and tell John you like him. Life is short and you’ve already ended up in my morgue once.”

“Playing matchmaker now, are you?” he replies, but he’s smiling too. 

“Not really, it’s just no one else will put up with your bullshit and he’ll be less irritating when he stops denying the massive crush he has on you. Save us all the trouble of his pining, will you? He’s insufferable when he’s moping.”

“Funny, I believe Mrs. Hudson has said the same about me.”

“Well then it’s a match, isn’t it?”

She winks and turns on her heel, walking away before he can reply and leaving him gaping embarrassingly on the sidewalk.

**Author's Note:**

> Keep your eyes peeled, there will likely be a follow-up piece of Sherlock and John having a talk~


End file.
